Ex-state employee faces ethics inquiry

April 11, 2009|By Robert Block and Aaron Deslatte Orlando Sentinel

An executive with the governor's Office of Tourism, Trade and Economic Development likely violated state law by arranging $500,000 in state funding for a "space tourism" program at a Panhandle medical clinic that he then went to work for, state investigators have concluded.

The official, Brice Harris, oversaw drafting of the program proposal - and negotiated a $150,000-a-year salary for its director - before resigning his state post to take the director's job, a three-month investigation found.

Gov. Charlie Crist asked his inspector general to investigate after the Orlando Sentinel raised questions in January about Harris' role in developing the contract. Crist at the time said that Harris' performance "probably doesn't pass the smell test."

In a report released Friday, the investigators agreed, citing laws that prohibit state employees from taking a job with a company if they were "substantially" involved in overseeing or negotiating a contract with that company.

"We recommend a referral be made to the Florida Commission on Ethics for further evaluation and determination of ethics law violations," two investigators wrote to Florida's Chief Inspector General Melinda M. Miguel in a report sent to Crist earlier this week.

The program, called "Project Odyssey," was to use $500,000 in state funds - including $250,000 from Brevard-based Space Florida - to set up a program to train "space tourists" at a Panhandle sports-medicine clinic.

The investigators said that they examined approximately 5,000 e-mails sent by Harris - many from his home computer - that showed he had helped design and draw up the proposal for the program. He even negotiated to set the director's salary at $150,000 - and then resigned his $70,000-a-year government post last summer to take the job.

Setting up the project "consumed most of Harris' e-mail communications and work time while he was employed with" Crist's office, the investigators wrote, and "was disproportionate to his time expended on his various other . . . duties."

A spokesman for Crist said that the governor is asking for the ethics review.

If found guilty, Harris, 31, could face public censure, a $10,000 fine, and be forced to pay back money to the state.

The development is likely to cast doubt on the future of the space tourism project at the Andrews Institute, a clinic near Pensacola, which would do tests and screenings to ensure would-be space tourists could withstand the G-forces and other stresses of space flight.

In a statement late Friday, the institute said, "The Inspector General's Office has not contacted or notified the Andrews Institute of their findings. As we learn more, we will release further information."

Harris, a Pensacola native, oversaw space and defense projects for the Office of Tourism, Trade and Economic Development since July 2007.

Before he left his government job, Harris met with an attorney in Crist's office to get approval to go to work for Andrews. The investigators said that OTTED Director Dale Brill signed off on the job, based on Harris' assurance that he had only a "limited role" in the grant award.

"However," the investigators wrote, "Brill stated that he recently learned that Harris had 'a lot of influence' in the Andrews Institute request."